Grand County WIC celebrates World Breastfeeding Week

August 1-7 is World Breastfeeding Week (WBW), an annual celebration to increase breastfeeding awareness. The Colorado WIC Program’s theme for WBW is Breastfeeding: A Key to a Healthy Future. This theme aims to highlight how breastfeeding directly impacts and promotes a healthy family, a healthy community and a healthy world.

Breastfeeding significantly impacts the health and wellbeing of mothers and babies, both in the short and long term. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests breastfeeding for at least one year due to numerous health benefits to mom and baby.

Compared to formula fed babies, breastfed babies are:

Less likely to suffer from ear infections and respiratory illnesses

Less likely to develop asthma, diabetes, allergies, and childhood cancers

Less likely to become obese later in life

Less likely to die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

Breastfeeding moms are less likely to develop diabetes and breast and ovarian cancer

Breastfeeding also has an impact on the health of the entire community and the world. It is a low cost way of feeding babies, helping to reduce poverty and prevent hunger, undernutrition and obesity. Breastfeeding entails less waste, less pollution and less of an ecological impact to our world. The health benefits will only increase as breastfeeding exclusivity and duration increase.